


slipping in my faith (until i fall)

by lilevans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Party, he doesn't show up to her birthday and shes the big sad and she cries in a bathtub, nothin new, this is a major projection of my own life please don't mind me, using fic as a way to express my emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 05:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19078003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilevans/pseuds/lilevans
Summary: lily, 18th birthday, in the bathroom, asking why james isn't there.





	slipping in my faith (until i fall)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beaubcxton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubcxton/gifts).



> for krya, because you love angst and i love you xx

_You should've been there,_  
Should've burst through the door,  
With that 'baby I'm right here' smile,  
And it would've felt like,  
A million little shining stars had just aligned. 

 

Lily, in the bathroom, sad about a boy again. Perhaps drunk. Calling him before she’s even realised that he’s the first on her recent calls.

“Evans?” he asks, and there’s the dull ambient roar of a TV and she thinks she can hear his grandmother complaining about the Liberals. It all seems fuzzy.

He moves away from the sitting room, from the mess of his family dinner and into the dull corner in the hallway.

“James,” she mumbles. It’s her 18th birthday and she’s smashed on tequila slammers and double blacks, someone’s crying in the corner of her backyard somewhere and she doesn’t remember if it was her.

“Lily, what’s wrong?” he breathes down the line, hint of urgency and a hint of feigning not worrying.

“Why are you not here with me?” she asks. She hasn’t turned the lights on; she’s sitting in the tub. Her birthday girl sash has tequila and tears on it. No one has asked where she is yet.

Lily, in the bathroom, asking why he’s not there.

“Fuck,” he mumbles softly. He leans against the doorframe, shoulder filled with the dull, awful pain of letting her down. “I wish that I was, Lil. More than anything I want to be there.”

“So why aren’t you?”

“Lily, I can’t get out of this dinner, they’ve had it planned for months, I-”

“You said you would drop round after. And you’re not here.”

He goes quiet, out of excuses. “I am so sorry, Evans. I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah, you are.” She slurs, head against the side of the bath, fingers cold against the phone.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” He tries, hoping he can make this better. His phone vibrates. It’s a text from Remus.

_I think Lily is in the bathroom and you might be the biggest idiot I’ve ever met._

He knows he is.

“I don’t want to see you in the morning. And you know what, I can’t _believe_ Sirius came and got out of this dinner and you didn’t.” She says, drunk and mad at him and still completely in love with him.

“He just didn’t want Nan to hit on him again,” he shoots back without thinking.

She laughs, a whole-hearted, drunken giggle, before getting the better of herself. The haze of the bathroom would be better if he was drunk and with her.

He leans against the wall, sighs, thinking that he’s had a glass of wine, and he can’t drive to see her. His hand runs through his hair, frustrated. He can hear a quiet sob down the line.

Another figure appears down the hallway. His dad looks at him, with eyes that sit in glasses just like his son. Assesses the mess his son is.

“Go see her.”

James stares. “Dad, this is so important to mum, and we haven’t cut the cake for Nan yet...” he presses mute on the phone, hoping his dad can’t hear Lily drunkenly mumbling.

“Oh, shut up about your Nan. Go see her because I know that’s all you want to do right now.”

“I can’t drive.”

“I’ll drive you.” He offers, softly, and James has never seen his dad like this before. Maybe he’s had more wine than first thought.

“Why, dad? I thought this was big and important and I had to stay.”

“You love her. And that’s important too.”

James just nods. He loves her and that’s just it. “Mum will kill us if we miss dessert. She worked so hard on that Pavlova.”

“I’ll save you a piece.”

He takes the phone off mute. Lily, on the other line, being picked up by Marlene and drinking some water, doesn’t hear him mumble, “Lil, I’m coming.” He hangs up.

//

“Told you I’d make it. I even brought you some Pavlova,” He flicks her with the birthday girl sash she’s dropped again.

She turns around, slightly less drunk than before. “Your mums?”

“Nothing better,” he grins.

She smiles, hands wrapping around his neck in relief. God, nothing is better than seeing him as R Kelly’s “Ignition” plays in the background.

“There’s one thing better than your mum’s pavlova,” she says softly into the crook of his neck.

“Oh, yeah?”

She moves to kiss him, swaying in the dark.

Lily, in the backyard, kissing the boy she loves.

//

(James and Lily, the next morning, hungover and eating Pavlova in bed.)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from read my mind by the killers (acoustic cover by catfish and the bottlemen is the best version xx)


End file.
